Passover 2013

So I guess, to some extent, this blog is turning into a place for me to record recipes that I know I will want to find again in the future. This year for passover I've come across some new and amazing recipes for passover seder. On top of the desserts that I always make, I added one new one that I found on my favorite food blog Smitten Kitchen. (Did I mention I got to see Deb speak a few months ago and get my book signed? She was quite entertaining and super nice). I tried her recipe for chocolate toffee covered matzo, and omg was it delish! Be careful because you will want to eat it all at once. My next adventure was with charosset. One of my passover guests is allergic to apples, so I searched the internet to see if there was an alternative to the traditional apple charosset, and was surprised to find that the traditional sephardic recipe isnt apple at all! It was dates and oranges mixed with cinnamon and red wine...can we say delish? I will certainly be making this again. My last experiment wasnt quite as successful. I tried tinkering with the matzo balls. I know, I know...they are already perfect so why mess with a good thing? Dont worry I still made 2 batches of regular matzo balls, but then I made the third batch Safran flavored (or safron or saffron...however you want to spell it). I got the recipe from the same site as the chrosset. My only problem was that they asked for the Safran in ounces, and I had a giant costco bottle of Safran (no joke), so I just sorta took a few pinches of safran and called it a day. It did make the balls yellow which was cool, but it turns out that I dont love Safran flavor, so it wasnt my favorite. I will come back later and update this with photos.

Blanket Complete

or at least its almost complete, I have to weave in the ends still. You may recall that almost a year ago I blogged about starting a new project. Well I'm happy to say that I'm all done (actually i've been done for a while but slacked on posting anything).

This blanket is so soft and warm! I love it!

Photo Editors On The Fly!

I've had a lot of cooking "crafts" lately, and its time for a change. Here is the start of my playing around with my iphone photo editing apps. It all started when I got a free snapseed app at Starbucks a few months ago, but never tried using it till my co worker showed me that it actually worked pretty well. On top of that last night I came home to an amazing sunset that just had to be captured via my dslr, peter's camera phone, and my iphone camera!

un-edited iphone photo
I then processed it through snapseed and instagram since I already had it on my phone

Snapseed (also first attempt processing anything on my phone)
I'm pretty happy how the first attempt at processing a picture on my phone came out, plus snapseed doesnt force you to share your photos, and just hitting save saves to your phone's photo library instead of getting stuck inside the app. This was my top pick, but quite pricey if it hadnt been free from starbucks.

Instagram - which i'm sure everyone has heard of unless they live under a rock. Since I didnt want to share the photo with the world my photo just got saved to the app, and now i cannot figure out how to go back and get it off my phone since it doesnt seem to let me retroactively share a photo, so you dont get to see the decent processing instagram did. This app probably gets my lowest rating since i'm not using it for social networking.

I then began googling best iphone photo editing apps and came across camera+ for a low 99 cents so I splurged and bought it. This app was fairly easy to use and offered a bunch of fun effects. I was less happy with the set borders that could be applied though.
Camera +

Next I tried Adobe Photoshop Lite since I know it works pretty well for real photos on the computer. The processing options were limited, or you could pay extra for addtional effects.

Adobe Photoshop Lite

Lastly I played with one called Camera Awesomeness but the app tried too hard to be funny so that took away points, plus I wasnt happy with the final product from this app, so I wont show that picture


While I'm add it, I'll add that I also love ColorSplash. Not quite the same, but a cool effect anyway where you can turn your photo black and white and selectively bring color back in.

Has anyone else played with iphone photo editors? if so what did you think?

Olympics!

I hope you are all enjoying the Olympics even if the opening ceremony was sorta lame. I got invited to my friend's to watch the opening ceremony complete with olympic themed foods.
I decided to make my favorite pasta salad with an olympic twist! I found out on pinterest that if you add food dye to the water when boiling the pasta you could turn the pasta colors! So simple, yet I hadnt throught of it before. So with my blue and white pasta I added Yellow, Red, and Green Peppers, and black olives.

Katie made desserts and snacks in the olympic theme. She's very creative! She started with Olympic Torches

and moved on to Olympic Medals (who doesnt like fruit by the foot!)

And the center piece was olympic rings cake!

Chocolate Classes

While i'm at it I'll post about the chocolate making/champagne tasting class peter took me to for valentines day. The class was taught at 918 F street by the chef from Coco Sala.

We made raspberry truffle pops, and were delicious! here is a picture of the pops before the 2nd side was added.

Look for another post soon from another class I will be taking there with my friend Julie.

The big 3-0

Well hello again, sorry for the big gap in posts. I guess I haven't been that crafty lately, but here I am once again with some delicious baked goods. I baked a plethora of desserts to celebrate my 30th birthday! Julie asked me why I was making my own birthday treats, and my answer was that I loved to cook (and this way peter and I wouldn't end up eating it all).

A few months ago I made Italian Rainbow Cookies, and while they were delicious there was still room to improve, so I thought I'd try again with two notable differences. First I used vegetable shortening in the frosting instead of butter, and boy what a difference that made! It was easy to spread and appropriately thick, so if you are going to try this recipe definitely go with the shortening, and if you live near here come use mine b/c I now have a whole package that I'm never going to use. The Second difference was the color choice. These no longer look italian or like christmas, but instead summary and pretty!

My next dessert was inspired by one of the most addictive websites ever created...pinterest of course. I made peanut butter-Graham Cracker Truffles and boy were they delicious! We made them much smaller than the recipe called for which I think was a good move since they were too delicious and this provide a little portion control.

Surprisingly most easily, I made mini cheesecakes with blueberries or chocolate chips on top.

Lastly, but certainly not least, a good friend brought over home made marzipan flavored marshmallows. Check out her website to see all the amazing flavors she makes

I still have a few days till my actual birthday, but I'm feeling very lucky to have such great friends and family to share these desserts with, or just tell them about from afar, and I cant wait to turn 30! Happy Birthday To Me ;)

Caramel Ganache Tartlettes

For Diana's Annual Wine and Cheese Sarah and Leslie came to town and we baked some delicious tartletts. We modified a few recipes and added our own twist. We made Caramel Tartlettes with a mini pretzel and drizzled with chocolate ganache.
For the caramel sarah showed us how to make it since she's an expert. The caramel looked so pretty while it was cooking

We then spooned about 2 tablespoons in to the shells we had made. We had read it would take 4 hours to set, but it turns out for the purpose we were using it for, it was almost immediately useable.

Leslie-the pretzler- put one mini pretzle on each one and then I drizzled ganache on top (the ganache tasted good but really did take forever to dry). These were so delicious! I cant wait to make them again.

Italian Cookies

I bought a roll of almond paste and later realized I couldn't just eat it plain (i guess I should say I shouldn't eat it plain because I certainly could). I found a recipe for Italian Cookies that looked delicious. It was fun making and dying the layers, and it tasted great. I decided I didn't want to use shortening in the frosting layer...big mistake. It turns out the butter just doesn't do volume like shortening does. It still tasted good but it could have been prettier. Freshly made they were great! Every day you could taste them getting not as great (still delicious though). The problem was the apricot jelly between the layers absorbed into the cake layers. Not the worst, but if you try this I recommend serving it immediately. I'll certainly try this again though!

The start of a new project!

I found a pattern for a new blanket. I'm not sure yet how big i'll make it, but the first piece came out pretty well. Look out for updates on this one :)

Crochet

Remember back in august when the hurricane "hit" I taught myself how to crochet? Well I figured I'd try out making a bigger thing, like a throw for the couch. I found a cute zig zag pattern and gave it a shot! I dont love the colors I picked, and I also picked not the softest yarn since i'm a beginner, so its not the greatest blanket, but i'm done and the pattern looks awesome.

Rosti and Museli

One of my favorite childhood breakfasts is a swiss dish of Rosti and Museli. I don't get it very often, but whenever my dad goes to switzerland he brings back a pack of Rosti for me. I decided to make it this weekend since its almost like latkes so it would be a good pre channukah breakfast. I had forgotten how gross it looks right out of the package.

but after cooking it and next to the bowl of Museli it looked (and was) delicious!

New Foods

I'm a sucker for buying new products that I see whether it be a fruit I've never seen or a new flavor of gum. This week at Trader Joe's and then Whole foods I found 3 new things that I had to buy.

First at trader Joe's I saw pea shoots! I love pea shoots at restaurants but I've never seen them before at the stores, and trust me I've been looking.

I've enjoyed using these by throwing them into stirfry and eating them with my potstickers. Its nowhere near as delicious as the ones in restaurants though, but I suspect those are a slightly different variety.


Next at whole foods I found Keffir Limes. I've never even heard of these, but how could I not buy one to try. I haven't tried it yet though b/c when I went to look up the recipe it turns out what most people eat are the leaves, but they weren't selling those. The internet went on to teach me that the zest of the lime is good in Thai cooking so maybe I'll try that. The part that I thought I'd be eating, the citrus center, is evidently not good for eating but is good for washing your hair because its so strong. Maybe I'll give that a try.


Lastly at whole foods I found an apple variety I've never seen before. I cant remember what its called but the blurb on the sign said its from Japan, perfected in Italy, and made exclusively for whole foods.....wait what??? how can a fruit be made exclusively for a store! This seems pretty wrong to me. I did buy one to try out of curiosity, and it wasn't bad but it tasted as fake as it sounds. I don't think that was just in my head, it had this weird almost perfumy sweetness to it.

Flax Crackers Take 1

My dad has been making Flax crackers and working on perfecting the recipe. His are delicious. I though i'd give it a try....it turns out they are harder to make than it looks! For starters I let mine sit for 2 hours in the fridge in the water, but it turns out you need to let it sit at room temperature. Second for flavoring I only added (low sodium) soy sauce which made them turn out far too salty. Third I cant seem to figure out when to take them out of the oven so that they are perfectly crispy without being burnt. I tried a second batch with soy vay instead of soy sauce, and i'm not sure why but its terrible. Maybe third time's the charm...we'll see!

Butternut Squash Soup

This weekend I decided to try out my new immersion blender, and what better to try it on than Butternut Squash Soup now that the temperatures are dropping and all the fall and winter foods are starting to appear in the grocery stores. we used this recipe, which in my opinion is miss titled. Its called Butternut squash shallot soup, but you could barely tell there were shallots in there, and really taste the ginger. Peter suggested putting a few crumbles of goat cheese on top next time which maybe we will try. It was very delicious.

Fried Rice

Well, we are back from our honeymoon and ready to eat in for a while. This first meal is hawaii-inspired. The best dish I had while we were there was actually at breakfast. Our hotel had an amazing breakfast buffet, and since most of the hotel guests were Japanese, they catered to their guests. One morning for breakfast (along with my amazing fresh pineapples and mangoes) I had a delicious pineapple fried rice that we decided to try and make on our own last night. I found this recipe. It couldnt have been easier to make. We of course omitted the egg, and added corn (peter loves to add corn to everything). The only step we didnt really follow was using old rice or letting it sit for an hour. We let it sit for like 10 minutes, and I didnt think it hurt the meal any. Maybe next time I'll prepare a few days in advance and whip up some rice. Sorry for the bad photo, I really need to start taking these pictures with my nice camera instead of my iphone.



As a side note does anyone have a rice cooker? I'm considering getting one, and peter thinks its a dumb idea. Thoughts?

Crafts in the shower?

Well sorta, more like science projects. One of the awesome things about my mom is that she encouraged my science side and allowed me to take part in many science projects as a kid. Anything I was curious about we investigated. One of which was using an egg for shampoo. I gave it a try except i didnt take into consideration the temperature of the water and made a scrambled egg in my hair. Well now that I'm older and more mature I thought i'd give alternate shampoos and conditioners a try. I get so much build up on my hair from normal shampoos and conditioners that I figured this couldnt be any worse. So i looked up a few different methods and settled on beer rinse to make my hair shiny. My hair is moderately shiny today, but nothing out of the ordinary. What is out of the ordinary however is how dry my scalp is today. I read more and I guess its the alcohol in the beer. An alternate method boils down the beer first which I guess I should try next time. This would have been nice to know before :( Lessons learned.

Amigurumi

Again, in preparation for the hurricane we got old school activities that don't require electricity. I bought a kit from barnes and nobles on how to make Amigurumi (crocheted animals), and re-taught myself how to crochet. I tried to use the instructions in the 1st chapter of the book but some didnt make any sense at all or left out steps, so i went to youtube for that portion. Once I figured out all the stitches I started with the kissing fish pattern.

It turns out that I was reading the instructions wrong and was more than half way through before i realized. For example the instructions would say *1sc, 2sc in next stitch* (12). I read this to mean 1 single chain then 2 single chains in the next stitch and repeat this entire cycle 12 times. Instead what it actually meant was that in the end you should have 12 stitches (not the 36 I was doing). I started to notice the fish wasn't very 3d (minus the lips i did perfectly), I thought maybe at a later step it would pull the stitches in and it would become spherical.

I finally re-read the how to section and realized I had been reading the instructions wrong. Luckily its easy to undo this and I started over from scratch.
I didnt quite get some of the steps on the fins but i think i improvised well.

Hurricane Chili

This weekend in preparation for Hurricane Irene to blow through town (probably an over statement since there was barely even wind) we stocked up with water, batteries, flashlights, and non perishable food. Peter had the great idea to make a big pot of chili and just eat that all weekend. My favorite vegetarian chili is hard times cafe at the ball park. Infact last time we went i got stopped by FOUR seperate guys who wanted to know where I had gotten the delicious looking chili (at first I thought they were just trying to make an excuse to talk to me, but by the 3rd i realized it was the chili not me). We started with a base recipe and added corn and peanuts.

The chili looked great even before the beans and tomatoes were added


The part you could really taste the most were the spices

The recipe calls for Chili Powder ( we added a bit more than it called for), Cumin, Coriander, and a tiny dash of Cinnamon...even though the smallest amt of spice in there was the cinnamon it was the most easily distinguishable with both the final taste and final smell of the chili.

I made nachos with my portion :)

Pea Pesto

Last night I followed Smitten Kitchen's recipe for Pea Pesto. Smitten Kitchen has never let me down so I love trying recipes from this site (see corn pie). English peas aren't quite in season so I had to make do with frozen peas. I also left out the pine nuts since I don't like them at all (although if i were to try it again maybe I'd give toasted pine nuts a chance). Peter also wanted me to add basil, but I left it out this time in curiosity for what a non basil pesto may taste like. In the end it was very nice looking, and pretty delicious, but definitely lacking something. Maybe that Basil and Pine nuts are what I needed. I do love this color though!


All in all I'd file this under a recipe to try again with modifications

Candied Pecans

One night last week I caught a bit of an old Julia Child episode while at the gym. She had a guest on showing how to make some lemon chiffon cake with candied pecans on top. The cake itself didn't look good, but the pecans sure did. I decided to play around with ingredients and make my own. First I tried just plain sugar (1/4 cup pecans, 2 tbsp water, 2 tbsp white sugar). This one was pretty good, but a little too sweet. Next I tried a batch the same but added a few grounds of sea salt. This one was definitely on the right track, but not quite there yet. Then I tried one last one with the sugar, salt, and then added a few shakes of ground cloves, and a few shakes of cinnamon. This one was the clear winner. For all these recipes all you have to do is throw all the ingredients in the sauce pan at once and stir till sugar dissolves and begins boiling, then reduce the heat and let cook for about 7 to 10 minutes stirring occasionally. If you take it out too soon the sugar coating remains sticky. You'll know when you are done when there is almost no sauce left in the pan.



I topped my salad with the cinnamon pecans and it was delicious!



The two things i'd try next time, is first maybe i'll try a batch using brown sugar instead of white, and second maybe i'd try toasting the pecans first.